The making up your own spelling of a name trend

mab18 · August 2013

Have you ever read Freakonomics? (If not, you should. It's fantastic). One of the chapters is all about baby names. Basically, you can tell a lot about parents from the names they give their children...

Firefly9 · August 2013

I don't judge someone by their name, but I do judge parents on what they name their kids.

How about this---naming your baby after a character in a book, but the name is obviously a made up name, then messing up the spelling to suit what you like. An example would be Novalee from "Where the Heart Is." Obviously a not-real name, except for the character in the book. So using that, but spelling it Novuly, because you like it better that way. (Not the real-life example I know of, but similar.)

missperky · August 2013

emmasue18 said:

Yes I totally get where your coming from with the made up name trend Strange spellings for the sake of it, drives me a little nuts. I love your traditional names I'd totally have a Gabriel if it wasn't my cousin's name and a Noah if my mom hadn't named he dog Noah. Maybe in my next life? LOL

applejacks3232 · August 2013

My husband always jokes that we're going to name our baby something normal like Matt but spell it Zarkth and always act mad when people are like, O_O but what?!

(we would never actually do that)

HeatherFontaine87 · August 2013

I think it is just stupid. I don't understand it. I think unique names are great. For me I'm thinking for a MN Persephone for a girl and Neptune for a boy (it was my great great grandpas name). But misspelling those or any names?!? Gross.

amber2913 · August 2013

Groan...

Hate this. But, then, intentionally misspelling names in order to be creative/cute has always made me kind of crazy. Like with business or product names (Krispy Kreme...Froot Loops...Tastee Freez...Krazy Kupcakes...etc.).

ufsandra85 · August 2013

Agree!! I am in charge of the birth registry and "baby letters" at my hospital and I feel bad for some of these kids. they are going to have thir names mis pronounced and mis spelled their entire lives.

jenniejuniper1 · August 2013

car seat said:

I don't know why people think this is a good idea. It makes as much sense as this:

Ayye doant noe wai peepul thynk thyss iz ah gud aydeeah.

This made me lol. So true!

AshandThree · August 2013

carleys said:

As a teacher in the Bronx ive seen some real winning names. Secret. Blessing. Princess. Starquasha. Destinee. Dijour. Dijon. Anfernee. Chnaiah ( shaniah) I could go on and on

um, Starquasha is amazing. Is that a GMO hybrid of squash and star fruit? Can I grow one? flame away, but my husband is British, so we went with the traditional old English spelling of our son's name. Graeme, pronounced Graham. I went to school with a child that died in a horrible accident who was named Graham, and I couldn't do the name spelled the same way. But I can take the flaming, I learned quickly at pediatricians and preschool that the default guess is Grimy, Greemy, or Grammy.

emmasue18 · August 2013

JoyBaby5 said:
I would say it is more of a younger generation trend to do, however, I am the "younger generation," and find it terrible, like nails on a chalkboard to me! Spell the poor kid's name right, and please don't give a girl a well known boy's name. They will have trouble all of their life!!

I am also the younger generation. I hate the unique spelling but I have to admit did have Emerson on my list for a girl!

halfthetree · August 2013

mab18 said:
Have you ever read Freakonomics? (If not, you should. It's fantastic). One of the chapters is all about baby names. Basically, you can tell a lot about parents from the names they give their children...

This was a major deciding factor in naming our son haha I love Freakonomics.

sdlaura · August 2013

car seat said:

I'm a big fan of the CEO test. Can you picture a CEO with the name you're thinking of using? If not, keep looking.

I was talking to friends about this last week and they said that on the flip side they use the pole test.

This is my thought exactly. My Mom said she used that test for my sister and me. I also want to name my kids names that adults actually have. Even if some names are "real" names, if I only know people under the age of 5 who have those names, they are too trendy for me.

legallyginger · August 2013

amber2913 said:

Like with business or product names (Krispy Kreme...Froot Loops...Tastee Freez...Krazy Kupcakes...etc.).

I'm lurking, and totally off topic, but I wanted to point out that a lot of food product names have to be misspelled so they don't get sued. Froot Loops can't be spelled Fruit Loops, because it would be false advertising; they don't contain any real amount of fruit. Same when you see frozen boneless chicken wings spelled Wyngs or Wingz, they aren't actually real chicken wings so they have to change the spelling.